


A Minyard That Makes Shitty Robots

by iridescent_blue



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Crack Treated Seriously, M/M, Youtuber AU, again not betaed or edited just me and grammarly against god, and neil streaming!! we love him, andrew is a shithead interspersed with andrew being Very in love, chapter two featuring taster camera and surgery robot, dont blame me you should be blaming bee for giving andrew the idea i just wrote the thing, featuring tomato spike and ankle detecting roomba, if you wanted to assign roles to it? neil is like lilypichu, its 1:15 am im crying a little, kevin would be like william osman i guess?, nicky is just nicky, no beta we die like men, oh yeah they say ily fuck you, sorry this is literally just medicated andrew as michael reeves because i have no self control
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-14
Updated: 2020-07-18
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:55:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25256506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iridescent_blue/pseuds/iridescent_blue
Summary: Andrew should never listen to Bee's advice. Or maybe he should always listen to Bee's advice.Anyway. At her prompting, he makes a YouTube channel to direct his manic energy into. It doesn't help that he only features his shitty, shitty, robots.
Relationships: Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Comments: 121
Kudos: 436





	1. Big Metal Piston Spike

**Author's Note:**

> whats up homies and homosexuals im BACK after four days is that a record high for me posting frequently? anyways this came to me like a prophet receiving visions from an angry god and i just Had to
> 
> anyway this is just a cracked out "what if Andrew was Michael reeves" idea that came to fruition
> 
> some of these lines are directly paraphrased from Michael reeves' videos, i love that man, i cannot lay claim to them he is the comedy king, not me, but there's also some of my own dialogue in there because you know.. i am the writer of this fic
> 
> subscribe to Michael reeves have fun on this journey i guess? yeah :)

Bee shouldn’t even be considered Andrew’s therapist anymore. She’s a fucking enabler, that’s what she is, in Andrew’s opinion. She’s also a bit of a genius.

Andrew’s in her office one day, stone-cold sober thanks to patient confidentiality, complaining about how the drugs make it impossible to sleep, and when he gets sober to sleep, he either has to set an alarm or wake up vomiting. The issue is that for several hours at night, when he’s too manic to let time slip by, he has to  _ do _ something. None of his other solutions for wasting time work. Reading feels like the words are just washing off the page, and his brain tunes out anything he wants to watch after about five minutes. He relays his personal hell to Bee, and she just hums because she’s infuriating like that.

After some thinking (presumably) and jotting down ideas to subsequently cross them out, she asks “What about YouTube?” 

Andrew blinks at her. “What about it.”

“Recording videos would be engaging for your manic brain and though you may not believe it, Andrew, you can be funny.” Andrew’s grateful for the distinction between his sober brain and his manic brain. They’re as different as night and day. He doesn’t appreciate the jibe at his self-esteem, though.

“I know I’m funny, I just don’t care.” Bee knows this. 

Skipping right over his comment, she says, “It would also be a way for you to share your ideas with more people than your immediate circle.”

Ah, yes. Those ideas. For robots. That he gets at three in the morning and has the  _ need _ to write down and then build over the following two weeks. Those. 

“I’ll think about it.” Bee, seemingly satisfied, asks him about how Aaron is doing at school, and they go from there.

But Andrew can’t stop thinking about her idea for him.

Which is how he ends up in his garage, setting up a camera and mic that he bought three days ago, then sitting down and letting himself ramble and giggle at the sheer stupidity of this  _ fucking  _ idea.

The next day, he wakes up and looks at the footage, stone-cold sober.  _ Huh. _ He’s seen worse on YouTube, videos with hundreds of thousands of views. Maybe Bee had a point. 

He keeps filming. 

\---

The video starts with Andrew sliding into frame, manic grin in place, saying “It’s not as stupid as it sounds, okay?” Then cutting to the title. 

**_A Robot_ ** _ that stabs tomatoes out of your salad  _ **_With a Big Fucking Metal Spike_ **

It cuts to a video Andrew saved a few months ago, where he got a salad that had cherry tomatoes in it. He’s bitching about them, because they’re tomatoes. They suck.

“I sent that to my cousin last year and for several months, I’ve been wondering how to violently remove tomatoes from my salad, and from my life, faster. The first solution is to not put those horrible red shitbombs full of bitter garbage into my fucking salad, which should be a given.”

Andrew raises his hands in a mocking stance. “Oh but Andrew,” he says, imitating Kevin, “I like tomatoes!” He brings his hands back down. “Yeah, well, some people like not vaccinating their kids,” he says, pausing for effect. “It’s, well, it’s whatever.”

Andrew grabs the chocolate milk on the desk in front of him and takes a sip. “So what am I gonna do? Pick tomatoes out of my salad for the rest of my life? That’s fucking stupid. How about I make a robot that  _ stabs them with a giant metal spike?” _ Andrew can barely finish the sentence because he starts cackling. 

The video cuts to him in the back of the garage, yelling to the camera. “You think your ideas are stupid? You haven’t seen  _ shit _ yet! I’m the Elon Musk of bad ideas, motherfucker, if Elon Musk was a  _ three _ -foot-tall twunk, and  _ dumb. _ ”

He cuts to a more coherent explanation of how he’s going to move the spike, and, you know, make it stab the shit out of tomatoes. He just replaced the extruder on a 3-d printer to have a  _ bigass metal piston spike. _ Simple stuff. 

He sits down and triggers the spike, half-explaining how he did it. It’s very fucking loud. 

“So I haven’t actually seen this stab anything before so I grabbed an apple to make my housemate mad and I’m just gonna see what happens.” Andrew reaches forward to put the apple under the spike and is hit with the realization that this thing could skewer his hand with little to no effort. “Wow,” he says, “I do  _ not _ like putting my hand under this, that’s gonna be a problem.” He sits back in his chair and triggers the spike.

It works perfectly, and his poker face lasts about half a second before he’s giggling. He triggers the spike to go back up, and it picks up the apple. His manic giggles turn into hysterical cackling, which last for roughly five minutes off-camera, but only ten seconds in the video.

“As beautiful as that is, I was still positioning and triggering the spike manually. That’s  _ garbage, _ ” Andrew says. “Just gotta use some fancy computer-vision code to get the spike to automatically find these bitter fucking landmines and stab them into oblivion.”

He starts to explain his process, but cuts himself off. “I’m gonna go kinda fast because it’s one, or two, or three thousand lines of code,” he says, “and also, that’s some nerd shit,” and then launches into a  _ very _ loud,  _ very _ fast explanation of the several filters he had to run over the video feed of the tomatoes to make them targetable blobs.

He finishes his tirade and takes a breath. “What does all of this mean? I don’t fucking remember. The way I code is that I drink too much Monster and then pass out for nine hours. It’s like alcoholism, but less productive.” That’s a lie. Kevin is useless when he’s drunk, and the meds Andrew is on keep him awake enough without needing energy drinks. He still drinks Monster because it’s sickly sweet and pisses Kevin off, though. Bee said he’d be fine.  _ Eat shit, Kev. _

“Tomato detection software and piston spike machine are cool on their own, but you put them together and you get a beautiful creation that extracts tomatoes out of my salad.” Andrew is visibly overcome with a horrible realization. “Or you get a machine that explodes sticky tomato guts all over my salad because the spike is moving at close to fifty miles an hour. Shit.” Who cares, anyway.

Andrew sets up the machine and grabs the salad. “I got this salad from Costco, but it looks like fucking dog vomit! Oh, maybe it’s because of these yucky fucking tomatoes in it! Let’s fix that problem!” Andrew puts the salad under the spike and steps back, crossing his fingers.

After a second, the spike moves and stabs one of the tomatoes on the plate. Then another. Then another. Andrew starts to  _ cackle _ and has to lean over on a wall to catch his breath. 

After a minute, he turns off the machine, grabs the salad and puts more tomatoes on it, and with the clock  _ clearly _ reading four in the morning, yells “Kevin! Come get your fucking hopes and dreams crushed!”

The video cuts to Kevin walking on screen, clearly a bit rumpled from sleep, but not too much, because he was up late editing one of his own videos, probably making it kid-friendly, or whatever. The camera angle has been significantly changed, and it’s unfortunately evident how short Andrew is, especially in comparison to Kevin, who’s fairly well known online and who is confirmed to be six feet tall. He rubs at one of his eyes and sighs. “Andrew,” he says, “why do you need such a big metal spike?”

Andrew smiles up at him. “Have you ever considered shutting the fuck up? Huh? Have you ever thought about that?” Kevin frowns. “Watch this, motherfucker,” Andrew says. He puts the plate of salad back on the spike machine. 

Kevin looks absolutely floored that it worked. Andrew gets right up in his face. “Oh, you look surprised, asshole. Did you have that little faith in me? That one of my projects would actually work? Get fucked, Kev!” 

Kevin sighs, and in the most exasperated voice says, “It’s so violent.”

Andrew smiles even wider. “Seventy PSI, Kevin! Why not?”

The video cuts to black for a few seconds, then cuts back to Andrew, closer to sobriety. “Thanks for watching the video, like it if you want, subscribe, or don’t, it doesn’t matter, death comes for us all in the end. What does matter is that I can finally eat my salad, without tomatoes.” Andrew picks up the salad and takes a bite. It’s a Costco salad, so it’s one hundred percent iceberg lettuce. He takes a bite, and immediately spits it back out. “I fucking hate vegetables. Why did I make this fucking robot.”

The video ends there.

\---

Andrew originally posted the video without a thought in the world but turns out, people really fucking liked it. Some people have even taken to putting ideas for other robots in the comments. There are exactly three ideas that he found that aren’t absolute garbage, and the rest are truly abhorrent. When the video passes one hundred thousand views in about a month, Andrew gets a text from Bee, simply reading ‘I told you that you are funny.’ That’s odd. Andrew doesn’t recall asking Bee for her input. 

It doesn’t matter, because he’s already building his next robot. This one is actually fun, since he can target Kevin and Nicky and say it’s for “content,” and they’ll eat it up. 

His Instagram, which Kevin bullied him into making, blows up when he posts a picture of the electronics and a knife nearby. Before he finishes the robot and the video, though, he has to make a call. 

\---

The video starts with Andrew slamming a Roomba down onto his desk. “I have never hated myself more in my life.”

**_The Roomba That Targets Your Ankles With A Knife_ ** _ and bullies you while it does it _

“This thing only exists because one of my few goals in life is to bring pain to my housemates,” Andrew says, smiling in the most angelic way he can (which is to say, he looks feral). “Originally, I just wanted to attach a knife to a Roomba for chaos reasons, but then I figured fuck it, I could make it target people’s ankles!” Andrew launches into a description of how he developed the code to recognize feet on a video feed, then pauses halfway through, leaning close to the camera. “Do you know how many  _ fucking _ pictures of feet I had to manually input into this goddamn API because I have a fucking eidetic memory and  _ I don’t even fucking know.” _

Andrew continues with the explanation of the code until he gets to the end and sighs. “I made a fucking foot detection robot, didn’t I. Fuck. I’m going to be the foot fetish Roomba guy now. Good thing this has a knife attached so I can stab anyone who even tries to say that,” Andrew says, looking directly into the lens of the camera. 

“So anyway, what the fuck is this speaker for, Andrew? I am so annoyed that you asked me that. You see, half the fun of threatening someone with a knife is insulting them while you menacingly get closer! Luckily for me, I have a good buddy who is good at two things and insulting people is one of them.”

\---

Andrew doesn’t know why he’s so nervous to text Neil and ask him to voice the Roomba. They’ve hung out a few times, because Kevin is considering moving in with the Foxes, the name that their joint channel goes by. Andrew had been unfortunately medicated, but Neil had put up with his lack of filter and they had teamed up to bully Kevin. Andrew left that night with a new contact in his phone and a genuine desire to be around him more. Even with all of his hookups, Andrew’s never felt like this with a guy. Doesn’t matter, because Neil is focused on streaming, specifically Exy, a bastard child ripoff of Rocket League and Fifa. 

Neil agrees to voice the Roomba rather enthusiastically, surprising no one. His insults are incredibly creative, and since he only has about three inches on Andrew, the “I’m coming for your ankles” line is especially relevant, since Andrew is siccing the robot on Nicky and Kevin. 

Anyway. Neil’s going to kill him for calling him Andrew’s “buddy.”

\---

_ Consumer Test #1 _

Andrew sets the Roomba down in the hallway to the kitchen and turns it on, strategically staying behind it. The knife on top is completely real, straight out of one of Andrew’s armbands. He had to test it and the robot definitely can locate ankles.

Nicky and Kevin, the poor fucks, exist in the house barefoot, which just makes the Roomba’s job easier. They have an actual Roomba, so the sound of one moving around doesn’t get their attention. However, Andrew holding a camera and smiling like a rabid animal, does. 

“Andrew, what are you doing?” Nicky asks, but it’s too late. The Roomba is under the table and has spotted Nicky’s ankles.

Neil’s voice, soft and sweet, calls out, “Hey bitch, I’m coming for your ankles.”

Nicky looks under the table and shrieks, bumping his knees on the underside of the table in his haste to get away from the knife. The camera shakes with how hard Andrew is laughing as Nicky climbs up onto the table, pulling his cereal onto his lap. “What the  _ fuck, _ Andrew? You put a  _ knife _ on there?”

Andrew wheezes. “Why wouldn’t I put a knife on there Nicky? I thought we were close, dear cousin,” he laughs again as Neil’s voice comes from close to the couch, an ominous “target located” that Kevin doesn’t hear over the sound of whatever video he’s watching in his headphones.

Andrew slowly zooms the camera in on the Roomba as it gets closer and closer to Kevin’s feet. The tip of the knife pokes Kevin’s foot and the Roomba is too slow to do any lasting damage, but Kevin’s shout of surprise will go down in history as one of Andrew’s proudest moments. He rips off his headphones and glares daggers at Andrew. “Are you fucking  _ trying _ to dismember me?”

Andrew has not stopped laughing for the last minute. “That’s what you get for telling me how to do my projects, you dick.” He walks over to the Roomba and turns it off, scooping it up with his free hand. “Now if you’ll excuse me, Stabby and I have things to do.”

“You named it fucking  _ Stabby?” _

The video cuts to Andrew sitting in the garage, once again. “This concludes the consumer market test. A grand success, in my book. Get ready to see Stabby the Roomba, in stores near you. Or don’t. This is a fucking disgrace to mankind.”

\---

That video ends up being even more popular. Unfortunately for Andrew’s audience (if one can call them that after two videos), his sentencing to medication is up, and he has to go missing for a month to get well and truly sober. What a shame. 

The only silver lining of being stuck in a psych ward is that Andrew has plenty of time to think of ideas for more robots.


	2. Surgery Robot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Andrew keeps making robots. Turns out, people think he's even funnier sober. 
> 
> Featuring: taser camera, surgery robot, and more!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is a monster of a chapter it is literally longer than any other single chapter I've ever written i was considering breaking it up but nah, fuck it, im lazy!
> 
> also this means that this is my longest fic on this acc which i am not proud of but simultaneously VERY proud of because this was fun as hell to write
> 
> i was gonna get it done yesterday but i had to help my dad get a new dryer (that's a fucking saga and a half in itself) and then i watched jschlatt for like two hours and wrote the surgery robot vid and then didn't have energy to finish the rest
> 
> so its done now here you go ily have fun again, some lines are mine, some are michaels

Andrew’s latest video starts with him climbing over his desk, which is in his bathroom, to sit on top of the toilet. 

“I am very short.”

**_A Camera That Makes me The Tallest Person in the frame_ ** _(by tasing everyone else)_

“First of all, being short is amazing.” Andrew crosses his arms. “I have never had to worry about legroom a day in my life. Everywhere I go, I am comfortable. Every bed is a king-sized bed to me. The two unfortunate parts of being short are having tall friends lean their elbows on my head,” the screen goes black and simply flashes _KEVIN_ across it, before cutting back to Andrew, “and taking pictures.” Andrew’s voice is deadpan and his eyes are nearly blank. 

“I hate it when people take pictures of me in general, but adding in other people requires the photographer to zoom out and use terrible angles that end up making me look stumpier than I already am. The composition of the photo is ruined.”

“So,” the camera cuts to Andrew, sitting in the sink. “I’m the robot man, apparently, I do robot things, fix my problem. At first, I thought about something to pick me up off of the ground, but all of those ideas sucked even more than this one and I did not want to figure out how to build those.

“Then I realized, I don’t need to make myself taller, I just need to bring all of my “friends,”” Andrew makes air quotes with his fingers (calling Matt, Kevin, and Nicky his friends is a bit of a stretch), “down to size.” Andrew lets himself get a little bit excited. “So, let’s electrocute their legs and make them crumple.”

The video cuts to Aaron, clearly in a different apartment, with snow falling outside the window. His hair has been different from Andrew’s for years, but it’s not like Andrew will mention the fact that he’s an identical twin at any time. “Andrew,” he says, as exasperated as a third-year medical student can be, “It just sounds like you’re coming up with excuses to tase people.”

The camera cuts back to a close up of Andrew’s face. “Yes.” He pans out to show the electrodes strapped to his arm. “This is a TENS unit. It uses high-frequency electricity to interface with the natural electric currents in your muscles to stimulate certain groups. It’s hooked up to my arm right now and if I turn it on,” he presses the button, “you’ll see the muscle groups in between the pads start to contract. I am trying to let my arm go limp, the TENS unit is making them contract involuntarily.” Part of his arm starts to spasm, and he zooms in. “You can even see one of the muscle groups spasming at a fraction of the frequency, which would be interesting if it wasn’t so disgusting and didn’t feel like garbage. These machines are usually used in physical therapy, but they aren’t super expensive and if you dial them up high enough, it causes enough pain to floor a grown adult. Which I am going to do.” It’s not _violent,_ it’s for _content._

Andrew launches into an explanation of remotely triggering the TENS units with a wireless flash trigger. “Then, the rest of the build is relatively simple.” That’s a lie. He takes a deep breath and _very_ quickly explains how he had to 3-d print a box to house the electronics, then code an Arduino to be triggered properly, then wire it all together, all done on top of his toilet in a cramped bathroom with bad ventilation. He’s never soldering without an open window again. “And then do it all again, _four more times.”_ He throws the two unassembled boxes at the wall of his shower. “Why the fuck did I decide to do this,” he mutters. 

The video cuts to Andrew sitting at his computer. His two monitors have their background set to a _very_ fat cat who happens to live in his house looking forlorn, overlaid with some text reading “what the FUCK is exy.” The style points are off the charts, especially when one takes into account the empty bottle of Johnnie Walker and several crushed cans of monster.

“After four hours of soldering and one call to my therapist who talked me out of a second attempted homicide charge, we finally have five taser boxes. No, not taser boxes, just put this box on and let me take some pictures of you boxes I promise they will not electrocute you - there is no way to say this well. They’re taser boxes.” Andrew sighs. “It’s one box per person, each unit has two TENS unit channels, one for each leg.”

“But Andrew, what muscle groups are you going to put the TENS unit on?” Andrew mocks. “I don’t fucking know. I’m not the doctor of the family, I was in juvie for the first two years of high school and I dropped out of college and crushed my sky-high hopes and dreams of being a social worker to make horrible robots and talk about them on the internet.” Aaron would probably know, but Andrew’s already outsourced to him once. He’s not doing that again.

“So I am going to be a good scientist and do some research. And when I say research, I mean shocking the shit out of my legs to try and make myself fall down. I could wait until tomorrow to do this, but it’s three in the morning and I’m out of melatonin, and my only options are night terrors or actual pain. So I’m testing it now.”

The next minute is just a collage of Andrew hissing in pain as he tests different parts of his leg. At one point, he pauses and sighs. “I could’ve been a social worker. I could be making a difference, helping kids out, but no, I’m stuck in my room, it’s four in the morning, and I just felt my calf try to invert itself.”

Eventually, he finds the right spot. He triggers the flash and his leg kicks back, just like he wanted. “Okay. Good. That one is one electrode at the top of your hamstring and just one above your leg armpit or whatever. I’ve been testing it on half power and one leg, time for full power and both legs.”

He gets himself set up and takes a deep breath, then clicks the shutter button. _Wow, that really fucking hurts,_ he thinks as his legs give out from under him. He can’t even control the shout he makes. It hurts that fucking bad. From the floor, he says, “Yup. That works just fucking fine. _Ouch.”_

“Let’s go take some fucking pictures.”

The lighting in the video changes, and Andrew looks noticeably more alive, probably because he slept.

“Before I go and terrify my acquaintances and family with this, I added this neat taser on top of the camera, because half the fun of being tased is the sound.” He clicks the shutter and the taser mounted to the top of the camera fires rapidly and violently. It’s perfect.

“My targets are Kevin, Nicky, and some of the Foxes, a group of idiot streamers who have made the misguided decision of trusting me.”

He cuts to the Foxes, plus Kevin and Nicky, standing and looking vaguely nervous. Well, Allison, Dan, and Matt look nervous. Renee looks serene as ever, and Neil looks like he’s about to burst out laughing. Probably, since Andrew was talking to him while he went through the actual grunt work of making the boxes. Andrew never asks for anything, that’s why they’re so nervous. Plus, he has a camera with a _taser_ strapped to it. If they weren’t nervous, they’d be even stupider than he thought. 

“Alright, everyone except Renee and Neil take a box.”

Matt immediately protests. “Why the fuck do they not need one? This is some favoritism bullshit!”

“Because, Matthew, they are not almost a foot and a half taller than me. Shut up and take a box.” Also, Renee would likely be able to withstand the pain of the box and Neil has a _significant_ amount of anxiety surrounding any sort of damage to his legs, and while Andrew is an asshole, he isn’t going to sink so low as to induce a panic attack for views. 

As he explains how to get the electrodes properly situated, he walks over to Nicky, Matt, and Kevin. “You have to get it on the right muscles or it will go through your nuts and that is _not_ a joke,” he says quietly, relishing in the horrified looks on their faces. “I don’t want you guys to get shocked in the nuts, I’m not a psychopath.” 

Under his breath, Kevin murmurs, “Are you sure about that?” And Andrew grabs his box and dials it up to nine, giving Kevin no time to complain. 

Once everyone is situated with their boxes, Andrew takes a step back. “Okay. Flip the switch on your box to on.”

Nobody moves.

“Now turn on the box.”

Kevin sighs. “I wish I didn’t say I trusted you.” He turns his box on. Emboldened, the others follow suit. Neil looks like he’s about to piss himself laughing, and he’s shaking so hard that King, his cat, bats at his face in retaliation for squeezing her a little too hard. Andrew would take several moments to think about how cute it is if he wasn’t filming a video and also about to electrocute some of his “friends.”

He sets the camera up on the tripod and goes to stand with the Foxes. Renee and Neil bracket his left and right sides, since they know the others will try to grab something on their way down and it _better_ not be him. 

Andrew pulls the remote shutter button out of his pocket and says, “Smile.” The Foxes oblige, and Andrew allows himself a self-satisfied look of his own. 

Then he presses the shutter button. The camera’s on burst mode, and he holds it for about half a second. 

Everyone drops to the floor, leaving Renee, Andrew, and Neil standing. Renee looks bemused and slightly disappointed in Andrew (the damn pacifist), and Neil looks like he’s about to puke laughing. King jumps up onto Andrew’s shoulder as Neil doubles over, wheezing a bit. Andrew just sighs and pulls King into his arms. “I love science, so much. This is what it’s all about. I’m finally the average height in the room.”

The camera cuts back to Andrew, in his room, surrounded by his monitors reading “what the FUCK is exy.” He leans towards the camera. “That is the most fun I have had since I finished my mandated medication. Let’s look at those pictures, shall we? You know, the whole reason I made this video. I totally didn’t do all of this just to shock the shit out of my cousin’s legs.”

The pictures are gold, obviously. Seeing Allison’s resting bitch-face turned into utter agony is hilarious. Matt, the big baby, goes down the fastest, unsurprisingly followed by Nicky. “These faces are incredible. Kevin looks like he’s enjoying it a bit too much, which is weird. They’re feeling their muscles involuntarily contract, putting them in immense pain until they fall to the ground,” Andrew allows himself a feral glint in his eye, as a treat, “where of course, it gets much worse.”

Andrew reaches over his desk. “I actually went to Costco to get some copies of my favorite photos. I think I’m going to send some to everyone I tased, like some sort of sick power play reminding them that while their bones may be long, they still have a weak constitution.”

“All of this joy was brought to you by taser camera - it’s not a taser,” Andrew takes a deep breath in, then out. “It’s a taser.”

The video cuts to black, and then Andrew is back in his bathroom, firing a taser at the camera. Hah. Ironic. “This video was sponsored by Headspace, because I still need therapy for my violent impulses. Go do some meditation, or whatever. Thanks to them for paying my rent for this month. Bye.”

\---

According to the internet, Andrew is even funnier sober. According to Bee, he’s funnier sober. According to Andrew, being sober is much fucking nicer. Sleeping is still hard, but that’s because of nightmares, not chemically-induced mania. 

There still is one problem, though. People keep posting absolutely _terrible_ ideas for robots in his comments section. He needs to get them to stop.

Making a video definitely won’t stop them, but Andrew has the itch to cause chaos and he’s in the middle of moving in with the Foxes (he and Nicky were a package deal with Kevin). 

He doesn’t need help setting up or filming, but Neil is there anyway, and he stays while Andrew records. It’s a really easy video to make, no script to follow, no difficult jump cuts, so it’s not awkward for Andrew to be in the room with someone else. Plus, Neil laughs at Andrew’s dry humor, and if Andrew could, he’d bottle up that laugh and hide it under his bed to listen to late at night. 

He also makes even more scathing comments than Andrew, and they’re genuinely hilarious. 

\---

The video starts with Andrew, sitting at his desk, opening his computer. “Some of you have gotten it in your head to leave ideas for machines and robots in my comments, which would be cool if the ideas themselves weren’t absolute garbage.” 

**_Your Robot Ideas Are Terrible_ ** _so I’m shaming you_

“Most of these are truly just abhorrent. Let’s see. A robot that makes lists and is like a voice-activated Wikipedia. Are you fucking stupid? Have you stayed out of Jeff Bezos’ slimy claws for this long? Alexa, tell this person that they’re stupid.”

It’s a joke. Andrew doesn’t have an Alexa, not when he could just search for things on his phone. Neil, sitting behind the camera on top of Andrew’s recently constructed bed in a pile of blankets, puts on his best artificial intelligence impersonation. “You, person, are a waste of space. A good idea for you would be to put snake plants in every room in your house to make up for all the oxygen you waste. Better yet, turn off your internet since you clearly are not using the bandwidth for anything productive.”

No one has made Andrew want to laugh this hard in ages. He keeps his face neutral. Neil can see his foot tapping with excess energy, so it doesn’t really matter. “Alright. One bad idea down, roughly forty-thousand to go. Oh, here’s another one. A robot that wakes you up if you don’t get up in time.”

Neil’s giggles get louder and louder as Andrew closes his eyes and takes a few deep breaths. When he reopens them, he looks at the camera, dead-eyed. “That,” he says, “is a _fucking_ alarm clock.” Neil is laughing with his entire body now, the mound of blankets quaking a little. 

“Let’s hope these next ones aren’t people just reinventing things that already exist. Oh. A hot glue gun that actually shoots hot glue. What’s that? Ding ding, it’s the discarded afterbirth of a shitty, stupid idea.” Andrew clasps his hands together and leans forward. “Do you want to know why it’s a shitty idea? Because hot glue sinks to the bottom of a pressure chamber, so you could but it under practically _any_ PSI and it wouldn’t fucking work since the air would just flow around it. Terrible idea zero out of ten stars.”

Andrew scrolls through the list of screenshots from his comments that he’s compiled, looking for something good to make fun of. “Wow. This one is just terrible. A robot that pours water on its circuit when you turn it on. I am appalled.”

Neil pipes up. “An Arduino is like twenty bucks and once you pour water on it then it’s fucking toast, bye, gotta throw it away. Sure, let’s make a robot whose express purpose is to break itself and trash all of the electronics, grand fucking idea!”

Andrew looks at Neil, tamps down a laugh, and just says, “If you’re going to make shitty comments you could at least come on camera.”

The video cuts, and now there are two people at Andrew’s desk. Neil is wrapped up in several blankets, feet tucked up onto his chair, peering over Andrew’s shoulder at his screen. 

“A door that stabs you when you open it.” Andrew cringes a bit. “I get it, the idea’s supposed to be good because it involves knives. Surprise, surprise, adding knives or tasers to something doesn’t make it a good idea. Except when I do it,” Andrew says. “Then it’s an incredible idea.”

Neil reads one off the list. “A fridge that insults you based on whatever you take out of it. You can’t do that, then Kevin’s out of a job. How cruel are you people?”

Andrew snorts at that one. “What’s next on this list, hm? Oh. Wow. A robot that walks around and periodically asks you for attention. Sounds like you want a cat without having to take care of a cat.”

Neil pokes a part of his blanket lump and King pops her head up, headbutting Neil’s chin and audibly purring. “Oh,” he says, smiling, “did you hear the word attention in relation to a cat? Are you that spoiled?” King purrs louder. “You little shit,” Neil says fondly. 

“Neil, this one’s actually good,” Andrew says, poking him. “Someone just said that I should make a robotic girlfriend. You know, to fill the void of the fact that I don’t have an actual girlfriend.” Andrew goes completely still and glares at the camera. “I don’t know how you people haven’t gotten this yet, but I’m gay. I have no purpose for a robotic girlfriend, or boyfriend, for that matter. Fuck you.”

Neil’s eyes light up. “You know if you actually built that then you could follow up on that promise - _hey!”_ He says as Andrew knocks him in the back of the head. 

“That’s all the inane bullshit that I have time for today,” Andrew says, partly because he might combust if he sees another shitty robot idea, partly because Neil is _out of fucking line_ and Andrew has a reputation to uphold of not blushing or laughing while sober.

The video cuts to Aaron’s apartment in Boston. He does the sponsored part of the video, tone flat and eyes dead. Andrew has no intention of mentioning that he has a twin, just because if he did then the mystery would be ruined, plus, Aaron is the one who suggested it. The instigator gene runs deep.

Right before the video ends, it cuts back to Andrew at his desk. “Also I joined the Foxes and moved in with them, bye.”

\---

Andrew refuses to enter the room while Kevin’s busy streaming, partly because Kevin gets _loud and annoying_ playing Exy and partly because Andrew is more secure when he can shroud himself behind clever editing and as many takes as he needs to get it right. But Neil asks him to come on stream one night, while they’re lying in bed, hands tangled together, and Andrew is powerless to say no.

Besides, Neil’s streams are a lot more laid back. Sometimes he draws, sometimes he plays games, sometimes he just listens to music and chills out while answering questions. It’s nice. 

He agrees to go on stream on a day where Neil has planned an “art class.” He can mostly be silent, just watch Neil draw him and then judge the viewer’s drawings. Easy enough. 

Before Neil starts the stream, he plays with Andrew’s hand, pressing butterfly-light kisses to his knuckles. “If you need to go, just let me know. I’ll cover for you.”

Andrew pushes his face away. “I will be fine.” If only he sounded convincing. Neil hums and busies himself with setting up the stream. Right before he goes live, Andrew presses a kiss to the corner of his mouth. “I trust you.”

The stream starts up and the chat is moving too fast for Andrew to follow. He feels horribly out of his depth and sits silently as Neil says hello. He sees a few messages saying hello to him, and taps two fingers to his temple in a salute. 

After about five minutes, the influx of new viewers has died down a bit, so Neil starts explaining the plan for his stream. “Alright, today’s an art class day with Andrew. I’m going to teach you how to draw him, we’re going to wait a bit, then we’re going to look at your art and Andrew’s gonna grade you.” 

Neil grabs his tablet and starts to draw. “So when I draw Andrew-”

“You draw me that often, huh?”

“Shut up. When I draw Andrew, he has a really square jaw so I like to start there,” Andrew tunes out Neil’s soft voice to watch him draw. Periodically, he checks the chat, noting how most people are just commenting on how quiet he is. They don’t know that he’s generally this quiet, and some days, the majority of the words he speaks are in front of a camera.

Neil makes up for his silence, describing how he draws Andrew, and when he gets to drawing Andrew’s torso, their feet bump together, off-camera. “Andrew’s always got his arms crossed and he works out a lot, so that’s why I’m drawing his arms bigger than I normally do.”

The chat is _flooded_ with requests for Andrew to flex. There are some other questions as to _how_ Andrew got jacked if he never sleeps and is pretty constantly working on robots. He elects to answer that first. “Chat, calm down. I go to the gym when antidepressants just won’t cut it.” The rest speaks for itself.

Neil nudges his foot again. “Chat wants you to flex for them.” The look on his face is pleading, but Andrew knows if he says no then Neil will shut down any other requests.

“Fine,” Andrew says, and Neil gets a very self-satisfied look on his face. Andrew knows Neil likes his arms, he’s been on the receiving end of a million kisses peppered onto his biceps. This is for Neil as much as it is for his viewers. He lifts one of his arms, half-obscured by his shirt, and flexes a bit. 

Neil pouts. “No one can see your muscles with your shirt in the way.”

“Fuck you. Here.” Andrew rolls up his sleeve and flexes again. It’s a subtle ego boost for him, he’s _worked_ for this and he _likes_ it. “Oh wow, muscle. Crazy. Never been seen before.” He rolls his sleeve back down and takes just a little satisfaction knowing that Neil has been rendered speechless. Neil’s been clear in the fact that he doesn’t swing, but for Andrew, he swings harder than a wrecking ball. 

Neil clears his throat and gets back to drawing. In no time at all, his tablet is displaying a sketch of Andrew, remarkably accurate for the time it took. Andrew would rib him for knowing his features so well if he hadn’t let Neil draw him for hours on end while he worked. The junkie’s always had a thing for staring.

Neil sends his devoted fans off to try and draw Andrew in their own styles, and Neil turns to the chat to answer questions. He rambles about his day, the stupid thing that Matt did earlier (Andrew was working but _apparently_ Matt had laid out tinfoil on the countertops to discourage King from jumping up and he scared the hell out of her), and how he’s doing that week. 

“How about you, Andrew? Chat wants to know how you’re doing.” _Check in with me,_ Neil doesn’t say. This is an open door for Andrew to take, a way out. He doesn’t want it.

“I am putting up with your inane bullshit, so I could be better. I could also have to deal with Kevin’s inane bullshit, so I could be much worse.” _I am doing just fine,_ Andrew doesn’t say. It’s just like sitting with the Foxes. He’s a bit more guarded than usual, but the chat can’t touch him, so they can’t hurt him.

Matt chooses that moment to bust into Neil’s room, holding two foam swords. He tosses one at Neil, who springs up and immediately goes on the offense. They spar for a minute, and then Matt points his sword at Andrew. “What, not gonna protect your man?” He teases.

Lightning-quick, Andrew pulls a knife from his armband. “What, not gonna protect your balls?”

Matt’s face drops for a second until he realizes Andrew is joking. He holds a hand out to Neil for the extra sword and Neil obliges. “Holy shit. Did Andrew just make a joke? Holy shit. Dan!” Matt yells, making his way out of Neil’s room, “Andrew just made a fucking joke!”

The knife disappears back into Andrew’s armband and he sighs. “I do not know how he doesn’t understand that I can be funny.”

Neil laughs, and for a moment they don’t acknowledge the stream, holding each other’s stare, eyes filled with amusement, until Andrew huffs, the closest he’ll get to a laugh while people can watch. Neil turns back to his computer. “That was fun, but chat wants to know if we’re dating now.” The question itself is an open invitation to Andrew. Neil had made it clear that he was fine if they never mentioned it or if Andrew mentioned it whenever he wanted. Andrew’s already out as gay, and that went over relatively well, what’s the worst that could happen? Some homophobic comments from teenage girls in love with Neil? They’ve both dealt with worse.

Andrew pinches the bridge of his nose. “Some days I wish we weren’t.” It’s a fucking joke, obviously. Dating Neil is one of the best things to happen to Andrew in years. 

“You like me.” Neil has a shit-eating grin plastered onto his face, playing into every strategy he has to keep Andrew out of his head.

“Ninety-eight percent of the time I want to push you out of a window.”

“Ooh, I’m up two percent from yesterday.” He’s wrong and he knows it. It’s two and a half percent.

“Yesterday I didn’t come on stream with you.”

“And that’s all we’ll say on that.” Surprisingly, Neil’s the one who ends the conversation. It would be too easy for them to get into their easy banter, for Neil to press a kiss to Andrew’s knuckles, and they don’t want any of that part of their relationship to be broadcast in any place that people could record and reupload. For now, at least. 

Neil opens up the submissions of Andrew’s art, the whole point he’s on the stream in the first place. Surprisingly, in the half-hour that Neil answered questions for, lots of people have already finished drawings of Andrew. Before Neil opens up the first drawing, he explains the rating system to Andrew. It’s out of one hundred, and only a few people have gotten a truly perfect score. He hears the underlying _don’t be an asshole to them,_ and really, Andrew wasn’t planning on it. Art is hard, he respects it, just like he respects programmers. Shit takes time.

The art is actually really fucking good. Some was clearly drawn before the stream and submitted anyway, what with the amount of coloring and shading, but Andrew doesn’t mind. It’s all really good, and except for a few joke drawings obviously done in MS Paint, they all get scores over eighty-five. The chat appears to be in disbelief when Andrew willingly compliments the artists, but it’s not their fault for being unaware of the fact that Andrew appreciates competency. 

They sign off the stream soon after that, with Neil promising to stream somewhat soon, since it’s getting late and Neil is getting sleepy. Once the camera is shut off, Neil buries his face between Andrew’s shoulder and neck, softly thanking him for joining him on the stream, pressing kisses to the base of his throat. In return, Andrew picks him up and carries him to bed, turning off the lights as he does.

They fall asleep, tangled together, and when Andrew wakes peacefully in the morning, he carefully rolls over to text Bee that he slept through the night, touching another person the whole time, and he feels _rested._ She’s up, of course, and she congratulates him on his progress.

It’s a welcome distraction from the hellscape of a robot he’s building. _Seriously,_ no one told him that essentially reverse engineering a CNC router would be _this fucking hard._

\---

The video for Andrew’s biggest project yet starts with a video that had made the rounds on the internet a few years back. A robot, cutting the skin of a grape, peeling it back, and then stitching it back on to the grape. Apparently, that year, whenever Aaron had mentioned that he wanted to become a surgeon, he was bombarded with questions pertaining to his likelihood of performing surgery on a grape. _Apparently,_ it was his personal hell. It was Andrew’s heaven. 

The camera cuts to Andrew’s face, uncharacteristically zoned out. “I could make that.”

_No_

_You_

_Can_ **_not_ **

_But I am going to try and_ **_Build A Surgery Robot_ **

“My brother wants to be a surgeon, so like the good big brother that I am, why shouldn’t I try and make a robot to make his life easier? Here’s the answer. He sucks. So I’m going to build a shitty surgery robot to make him feel physical anguish at the very idea of being related to me.”

“That shitty robot that I showed you costs close to two million dollars and is clunky as hell. For this new and improved robot, the surgery tool is going to be mounted on a rail system. Think like the way a 3-d printer moves, but big, fast, and instead of printing something, it’s doing surgery.”

He plunks a piece of 3-d printed plastic and wheel bearings onto the table. “I have to make two more of these to move this fucking robot. This is the carriage. Watch.” Andrew slides the carriage onto a piece of metal and it slides back and forth. “But I’m not going to control it with my hand. That is stupid and I’m lazy. So I’m going to build and code a whole system that can move it for me since that is obviously the path that requires less work.”

He raises his hand to the camera and snaps. It cuts to him standing in front of a longer piece of metal, with… _something_ on top of it. “I did that funny snap teleportation thing, right? That was a week ago. I fucking hate robotics.”

Andrew gestures to his setup. “This is one carriage. It uses a brushless DC motor and an ODrive that ends up working like a brushless servo motor. I have no fucking clue what that means. Anyway, I very professionally hooked up the motor to the driver boards to my computer so I can see if this piece of shit works.” He executes the command to move the carriage and it slowly starts rolling back and forth. “Okay. This is the calibration sequence. Before it runs, it has to do this.” The motor increases its speed, just a bit. “Huh. That’s cool. It should be faster with the strength of the motor, though.”

After five minutes of looking up solutions, Andrew finds it. “There are default parameters on this motor so I just have to turn those off.” He does, which takes another ten minutes.

“Alright. Take two.” He starts it up again and waits through the calibration sequence. 

For all intents and purposes, Andrew is incredibly stoic. He’s been to juvie, dealt with attackers twice his size, and faced truly frightening things in his own mind. He doesn’t flinch unless he’s woken up by someone touching him, and Neil is slowly breaking that down.

That being said, when the robot flies across the metal, he _flinches._ The robot doesn’t care about Andrew’s reactions, so it continues on its program and flies back across the beam. It’s just as violent as the first time. Andrew drops his computer as gently as possible and lunges to unplug the driver boards. When he stands up straight, he runs a hand through his hair, and his eyes light up in the way that suggests he’s gotten a truly horrible idea. “That’s great. Just as fast as I want it. Wait for just a second,” he says, and the video cuts to him leading Neil over to the beam.

He turns on the robot, and Neil oohs and aahs through the calibration sequence. Rightfully so. It’s taken Andrew _fucking forever_ to get this far. However, when the machine ramps up, Neil _shrieks._ Then he laughs. A lot. “What the fuck, Drew?” He wheezes. “Why does it need to go that fast?”

“Why does it need to go slow?” Andrew counters. 

“Fair point.” Neil straightens up and blows the hair out of his eyes. He leans over and kisses Andrew on the cheek. “I got more ice cream, by the way.”

The video cuts and Andrew’s neck is noticeably less red than it was a second ago. “I just have to put three of these together and it looks like-” he snaps.

“This. I did the fucking teleportation thing again. It’s been three weeks and I want to die but that would make my therapist disappointed in me. But I built this.” Andrew steps back from in front of the camera to reveal the world’s _jankiest_ frame for the robot. “It is made of aluminum and wood that I stole from my boyfriend’s bed.”

The video shows Andrew and Neil disassembling Neil’s loft bed that he never actually slept in because it wobbled so much. They drop part of the frame. It’s loud. The video cuts back to Andrew.

“The people at Lowe’s know me by name now since I go there so often and it makes me livid. So I didn’t go to get wood for the platform. This piece of garbage is just a prototype so I don’t build the final robot for it to not work. It’s the same idea as the single carriage, but now there are two motors on the y-axis to get it to move anywhere. Simple enough.”

He runs the program and starts moving his cursor on the screen. The carriages start moving, but the frame isn’t very secure, so he has to hold onto it as the motors jerk the platform back and forth.

“If it looks like garbage, that’s because it is, but it actually does a good job of tracking the mouse position. It can move in a pretty decent circle from the top view. At least it fucking works.”

The video changes to Andrew sitting closer to the camera. “That’s all well and good, I can move the surgery tool over any part of the operating table. But how am I going to move the implement up and down? That’s where the Carriage Utility Mechanism comes into play.”

Andrew spells out the acronym on screen. He did it on purpose. The videos he makes aren’t educational, he’s not going to pretend like they are. They’re dry comedy at best, complete and utter chaos at worst. Or maybe it’s the other way around.

“The good thing is that I built it. It’s made. The concerning part is that originally I was just going to move a thin plate of plastic with a motor. Then I saw what those were doing,” he gestures over his shoulder, “and I had to make it stronger, so I decided to make it a little bit faster to keep up with the other motors and I got a bit carried away and now it looks like a bomb and weighs ten pounds.” He lifts it up. It really does look like a bomb. Good thing he has no plans to take it through the airport or ever have it leave the house. 

“It works great. The motor perfectly adjusts the plate to whatever height I need. Slight problem, though. I don’t know if the carriage motors can handle ten pounds, so I’m going to test it.”

The video cuts to Andrew on his knees under the platform, tying a ten-pound plate to the main carriage. “Oh Andrew,” he mocks, “why are you being a coward and not using the Carriage Utility Mechanism? Because it’s fucking beautiful and took forever to build, so you can just cry more, assholes.”

He tests out the carriage. “So it’s handling small movements well, the y-axis looks good.” He jerks his mouse to the left and the platform, which had been resting in between two folding tables, jolts abruptly and one leg slides off the edge. “Shit. It’s fine, I can just build the whole thing now. Who cares.” He raises his hand to the camera and snaps again.

Andrew’s hair looks just a bit longer when he puts his hand down. “Another fucking snap, huh? God, after this I’m going to need even more therapy. Anyways,” the camera pans out, “The surgery robot is done. Where is it, you ask? Right fucking here. This is the table. Massive payoff or whatever. Get fucked.”

The robot looks surprisingly industrial. Everything is neat and tidy, the cable management is something Andrew is unnecessarily proud of, and it hasn’t fallen apart yet. Emphasis on yet.

“But Andrew, does it even work? Wow, glad to know that everyone thinks so highly of me. Does it work? I have no fucking clue. You see, dear viewer, I have been working on this for several months now. I am too afraid to turn it on, so I started filming so I will at least have a video to present in court when I get arrested for arson once this thing tears itself to shreds. That was a joke. My criminal record requires me to clarify that I am joking. I’ll just cry instead.”

He turns on the robot and visibly holds his breath as the homing sequence runs. The robot starts running through its pre-programmed movements to test its strength, and Andrew’s sighs of relief only grow in volume. Once it finishes its program, Andrew turns to face the camera. “I am considering converting to Christianity. Or maybe Judaism, just to piss off Renee.”

“Alright, the machine works. The biggest problem so far has been solved. Now I can start controlling this thing. But where’s the controller? Fuck you, I am the controller.” Andrew sticks his hand out, and the monitor attached to the robot shows a skeleton view of it. “I got a virtual reality hand tracking camera off the internet because _fuck it,_ and it actually works surprisingly well. I just take the hand coordinates from this, pipe them into the robot, and boom, done, I’m doing surgery.”

He cuts to the first test of the controls. The robot tracks incredibly well, all of the pieces working together, the plate moving up and down as Andrew moves his hand closer and further away. “Okay, robot, do surgery here. Now go over here.” What’s not shown on camera is fifteen minutes of Andrew, enthralled with his own robot, making it run all over the place. It’s completely made from scratch, which is incredible to Andrew, that he could build something like this. Oh, if sixteen-year-old Andrew, who thought he would be dead by twenty, could see him now. 

“Before I unveil my surgery robot and begin the process of replacing all jobs with autonomous robots, I have to attach a surgical tool to the C.U.M. Otherwise, this is just a useless CNC machine. I am not waiting for more fucking parts to get here, so fuck ordering scalpels or whatever. When you think about it,” and there’s that glint in Andrew’s eye, once again, “scalpels are just shitty, small knives. So why don’t I just use a bigger, better knife?” He reaches into his armband and pulls one out. “This one will work just fine.”

The video cuts to a close-up of the knife, attached to the robot, merrily stabbing downwards into the air. In the background, a door opens, and Kevin yells, “Andrew, what the _fuck_ did you do?”

The rest of the Foxes quickly pour in. Kevin’s disgust and fear is always a production. Andrew waits until they’re all assembled before saying, “This is my surgery robot.”

Dan is the only one who seems to have regained her voice. Besides Renee, who has been the only one allowed in the garage close to completion of the robot. “No, Andrew,” Dan says. “That’s a knife.”

Andrew ignores her. “Renee, do you want to stab a pineapple?” She nods and takes Andrew’s place. She’s remarkably adept with it, but that’s partially because Andrew allowed her to test it while he was messing with the code.

After Renee has smeared pineapple juice all over the table, Andrew allows each member of the Foxes to mess around with the robot a bit. He bought a bunch of fruit. Nicky predictably shrieks every time he moves the knife quickly, Kevin immediately starts brainstorming ways to make the robot better (and is promptly kicked out of the room), and Matt has entirely too much fun boring a hole into a watermelon. 

Allison is cutthroat and actually manages to slice the knife through some kiwis, which takes a lot of determination, and Andrew is begrudgingly impressed. Dan looks vaguely unsettled and after a few stabs she gives up, asking Andrew to be careful with it. It’s not like he can move it to stab her in her sleep. That’s counterproductive. It’s a surgery robot, not a murder robot. If he _was_ going to make a murder robot, it wouldn’t be this stationary. 

Neil is a different story entirely. He’s completely unfazed by knives, and when he finally skewers a strawberry and manages to pick it up, he leans forward and plucks it off the knife before popping it in his mouth. “Thanks for getting all this fruit, dear,” he says and kisses Andrew’s cheek on the way out. Andrew _does not_ blush. At all. Fuck off. 

Once he’s cleaned off the table and brought the fruit to Neil (who is essentially a vacuum but only for fruit), he sets up a skype call with Aaron. Before he calls his twin, he turns to the camera. “Stabbing fruit is fun, but that isn’t the purpose of this robot. I need to get some insight from someone in the medical field. Unfortunately, my brother has been leeching off of my bank account for several years to pay for medical school. So I’ll call him.”

They don’t bother with pleasantries. Andrew also doesn’t bother with explaining that he is an identical twin. It should be pretty clear at this point. With no preamble, Andrew says, “You know how you’ve been studying for like six years to become a surgeon?”

“Yeah, you’ve been paying like half my tuition you know this, asshole.” Aaron’s curled up on a couch, a dog just barely visible with its head on his lap. His eye bags are impressive, but he’s also in med school. It’s practically a uniform.

“I built a robot to replace your job in around two months. Eat shit.” Andrew relishes in Aaron’s shock as he demonstrates the absolute prowess of his technology. He bought a foam mannequin head and Neil helped him fill it with fake blood, and he stabs it through the ear while Aaron watches. Seeing his brother squirm, watching Andrew utterly butcher something he’s training to do for a living is immensely satisfying. At the end of his demonstration, Andrew asks Aaron one final question.

“How likely are you to recommend this to your superiors?”

Aaron sighs and presses the heels of his hands into his eyes. “I’m not. But, I will pay you to put me on that table and stab me so I have an excuse to get out of this exam.”

“I’m not paying for hospital bills and med school. You have to pick.”

Aaron throws his head back and groans. “Ugh. Fine. Talk to you next week.” He hangs up. 

Andrew turns back towards the camera. “That concludes research and development of my surgical system. If you are a hospital that sees this and wants to try it out, you can’t. I’m not sorry. Remember, don’t drop out of college or you might end up making a CNC knife machine, don’t do cocaine, fuck that goddamn grape robot, bye.”

\---

Neil’s birthday is coming up and Andrew can see him winding up, tighter and tighter as the day approaches. He celebrates his birthday in March, that’s his birthdate on his license and passport and social security, but the nineteenth of January is always difficult for him, as he confessed to Andrew late one night. 

He refuses to take a day off from streaming, claiming that sitting around and doing nothing will make him feel worse than plopping down in front of a camera. Fucking junkie. He also wants to do something stupid and reckless, so Andrew suggests getting drunk while he streams. 

It’s not a terrible idea. Andrew will be there to supervise and his tolerance is sky-high while Neil is the exact opposite. Neil’s gotten drunk before, so it’s not like this is incredibly new territory. It’s not going to be a very long stream at all since they’re starting late and Andrew is cutting off the stream once Neil starts running his mouth.

Andrew starts the stream by plunking an open bottle of whiskey down on Neil’s desk and booting up Smash Ultimate. Neil busies himself with turning on the string lights on his wall and grabbing a blanket as their house is perpetually cold. He throws one over his shoulder at Andrew, who catches it and wraps it around his shoulders. Trust Neil to know that he’s always cold, even though he’s in a hoodie and sweats anyway. 

Neil finally gets situated and hands Andrew a controller. “Hey. I’m not going to stream for very long tonight because we’re getting drunk and playing Smash.”

“Only one of us is getting drunk,” Andrew counters, and takes a drink directly from the bottle. I’m just drinking.”

“Yeah, okay.” Neil picks Kirby and takes the bottle from Andrew, taking a big gulp of liquor as Andrew selects Ridley. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

“I came to win. Problem?” Neil seethes and takes another drink. “It’s not my fault that you are terrible at Smash.”

“How are you even this good at Smash?” Andrew takes the bottle from his hand and sets it down on the table. Neil doesn’t need any more alcohol if he wants the stream to last more than thirty minutes.

“I had to be better than Aaron at something.” It’s true. While Aaron got praised at school for his good grades (once he got clean, of course), Andrew was “uninspired and lazy.” So he learned how to kick Aaron’s ass at every two-player game they had. 

They play a few rounds, Neil lamenting that Andrew is too good, and then a rule is instated. Every time a round ends, the winner drinks. 

Andrew keeps winning. And drinking. He can feel the alcohol in his system, making him feel pleasantly relaxed, but he knows for a fact that he doesn’t act drunk. He’s also not drunk. 

Neil drinks periodically, theorizing that if Andrew is just getting better with how much he’s drinking then Neil must also have some latent skill that alcohol unlocks. He’s wrong, of course, but it’s funny. 

They make it about half an hour before Neil puts down his controller and leans on Andrew, looking through the chat. Their chairs were close enough together, but the way Neil’s sitting can only end in him crashing to the ground and subsequently bitching about it for twenty minutes. So Andrew bites the bullet and pulls Neil into his lap. He also may be just a little bit drunk.

Neil’s reading through the chat and giggling for no apparent reason, and Andrew feels unnecessarily jealous at the fact that thousands of people are seeing Neil giggle, something that Neil shares with hardly anybody. He’s full-on laughing now, so Andrew pokes his side. “What’s up, chuckles?”

“People still think I sleep on the futon on the floor.” It’s not really a futon, more like a big pile of blankets and pillows that Neil called his “bed” for a few months. “I’m not just dating Andrew for the content, okay? He’s got a really nice mattress. _Fuck._ It’s so comfy.” 

Andrew should become a psychic. They’re almost exactly forty-five minutes and Neil has entered his stage of drunken rambling. Maybe he just knows Neil too well at this point. “Okay, you need to go to bed,” He says. Neil whines and buries his face in Andrew’s neck, shaking his head. Andrew rubs his back for a few minutes, and Neil goes back to reading the chat.

He perks up when he finds a good question. “What’s it like dating Andrew? Doesn’t he have a criminal record? Yeah, he does, but he’s also the big spoon and talks to King like she’s a human adult so I think there’s nothing to worry about. And his bed is really nice.” 

With that, Andrew scoops Neil up and throws him over his shoulder in a shitty fireman’s carry. “You’re going to bed. Goodnight, stream.” He cuts the camera and ends it.

Neil wiggles enough that Andrew puts him back down and pouts. “I wasn’t done yet.”

“No, junkie, you were about to say some stuff that you were going to regret. Come on. Bed.” Neil sighs and follows Andrew out of his room. Andrew manages to bully Neil into brushing his teeth and pulls out a bottle of Advil to leave on the nightstand before they crawl into bed. 

Neil tucks his chin into Andrew’s bare chest, softly kissing one spot on his collarbone over and over again. “Thank you,” he says, sleepy and content. “This was the best birthday I’ve ever had.”

“Shut up. It’s not your birthday.” Neil Abram Josten’s birthday is in eighty-nine days. Today was a ghost’s birthday, an unfortunate remnant of a past life.

“Whatever. Love you,” Neil mutters, burrowing even closer to Andrew. Their legs tangle together, and Neil relaxes into the mattress.

“Go to sleep, junkie.” Andrew wraps his arms around Neil, holding him close. There’s a reason Neil’s so clingy tonight. Andrew has a front-row seat to the nightmares where he’s ripped away from this life once again, back into an existence that solely promised pain, with death as the only reprieve. January nineteenth is an unfriendly reminder to Neil that he has a past full of trauma, and he holds on tighter to Andrew to keep himself anchored. It’s not exactly a problem. Andrew feels more secure when he can hold on to Neil, too. 

Andrew traces a finger up one of the long scars on Neil’s spine, feeling the tiny slashes from uneven stitches, a rush job from his teenage years. So much carnage and Neil is still so beautiful and full of light. If Andrew believed in miracles, that’s what he would call Neil. But he doesn’t, so Neil is just a person who got lucky, and so is Andrew.

“I love you too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fuuuuck what did i just write? seriously i don't fucking remember writing any of this
> 
> don't come for me i suck at smash I've played it like three times in total and um.. im absolute GARBAGE
> 
> anyways lmk what you thought!! this is now my longest fic ever (and longest single chapter) which is a terrifying thought
> 
> leave some kudos for ur homeboy (its me im the homeboy) if u wanna then comment n yell at me  
> aight loves have a nice day get some sleep, eat well, don't follow any of andrews advice ever

**Author's Note:**

> fUCk wasnt that wild?? yeah cool
> 
> next chapter hopefully featuring Kevin and Andrew moving in with the foxes (who are practically offlinetv, while im on this topic uhhhhh FUCK fedmyster he's a piece of shit i don't support him), taser camera, surgery robot, and possibly a "your robot ideas are absolute GARBO" video from a stone cold sober andrew
> 
> i am not going to expand on how exy works in this fic i will leave that up to your imagination just know it is chaos
> 
> anyway i HAVE to go to bed i don't remember writing the last quarter of this which is... concerning 
> 
> leave some kudos or a comment if you're feeling like you want my neverending love  
> kk goodnight lovelies maybe a chapter two will arrive in the next few days,, the next week? who's to say


End file.
